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News Briefs for June 29, 2012

•Bordeaux third-growth Château Calon-Ségur is rumored to have been sold to a new, as yet unknown, French owner, for an estimated $212.5 million, reports Wine Spectator. The purchase would include 235 acres in St.-Estèphe, encompassing Calon-Ségur, second label Marquis de Calon and a cru bourgeois property, Capbern-Gasqueton. If the deal closes, Calon-Ségur would be the most prominent of several Bordeaux properties to recently change hands.

•Bill Foley has come to a deal to acquire Marlborough’s New Zealand Wine Company and add it to his existing kiwi holdings under the Foley Family Wines New Zealand umbrella. Foley said the deal will offer “much needed supply, as well as the Grove Mill, Sanctuary and Frog Haven brands to add to our robust portfolio.” It will roughly double Foley Family Wines New Zealand’s vineyard holdings to around 500 acres. The agreement is still subject to shareholder and New Zealand Overseas Investment Office approval. Foley told Shanken News Daily in a recent interview that more acquisitions are likely on the way this summer, including potential deals in California’s Russian River Valley, Dry Creek Valley and Lake County areas, as well as in Oregon.

•The Glenmorangie Co.’s Ardbeg single malt Scotch brand has released a limited edition offering in honor of Ardbeg Day, an annual celebration at the Ardbeg distillery, during which the public is welcome to visit. In honor of this year’s event, Ardbeg has created a blend of two different styles of Ardbeg Scotch that have been aged in sherry casks for 6 months, resulting in a “peaty, smoky” liquid bottled at 56.7% abv. Starting this month, the Ardbeg Day bottling will be available at retail throughout the U.S.

•Starbucks at the Streets of Woodfield café in the Chicago suburb of Schaumburg has introduced its Starbucks Evenings concept, featuring beverage alcohol options offered during evening hours. After 4 p.m., customers may order wine ($7 to $15 a glass; up to $50 a bottle) and bottled beer, as well as small plate items, including flatbreads, bacon-wrapped dates, warm rosemary cashews and chocolate fondue. The Starbucks Evenings concept, which launched in Seattle in October 2010, is offered at seven Starbucks locations throughout the Pacific Northwest, and those units have experienced double-digit same-store sales growth after 4 p.m., the company says. Starbucks plans to expand the Evenings concept to as many as six more units in the Chicago area, as well as to units in Atlanta and Southern California, by the end of the year.